CNBC reports that “multiple sources” say Facebook is turning the M assistant originally built for Facebook Messenger into an Alexa/Siri/Google Assistant-style voice assistant, and “two people who have had discussions with the company” say that Facebook still plans to launch smart speakers that would be powered by the M assistant.

But with the company facing some backlash over privacy policies in the US, Facebook is said to be considering launching its speakers in other countries first.

According to CNBC, Facebook is currently working on at least two models. One sounds like it’s “just” a normal smart speaker that you interact with by voice. The other has a camera and touchscreen display and it could be used for video calls, among other things.

hell no... i dont want any of these so-called "smart speakers" anywhere near my home, and the device with the camera? hah!

"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever the wanted to. You had to live- did live, from habit that became instinct- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."-1984, Book 1, Chapter One, George Orwell

and just a thought; considering the case of count dankula; the UK government is really only a few business contracts away from being the 'thought police' over these smart speakers/cameras/assistants...

The problem as always with such services is that they are all about monetisation of the userbase, any reason they can think of to gather further current data on their users will be taken, I hate to state the obvious but its not much more than we have the capabilities for on this network, in thier model each user or group is a "channel" and you can toss images or video into the channel or indeed many channels.

I am still in wonder regarding just how much the share price of this entity is considering it delivers so little bar its popularity, when the folks using it wake up to the fact that they have been keeping "facebook" fat on their information and recieve a diminishing need of the service they may just come to the realisation of the true price they have paid for losing their privacy across so many years, its not just your folks and friends whom have access to your data.